It’s Prashant Bhushan vs CJI Bobde now. Bhushan should have picked someone his size

Prashant Bhushan is no stranger to controversy and after being convicted of ‘contempt of court’ earlier in September by the Supreme Court of India, the wannabe ‘martyr’ of the liberals has now ratcheted up another controversy, which most certainly is expected to end in another contempt of court case. Bhushan’s obsession with CJI SA Bobde knows no boundaries and this time again, his target is the CJI.

On Wednesday, the convicted ‘contempt of court’ lawyer tweeted an accusatory tweet where he said that CJI availed a special chopper provided by the MP government to visit his hometown via Kanha National Park. In the same breath, Bhushan insinuated that Bobde was taking favours from the Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s government in lieu of favorable judgment in one of the pending cases.

“The CJI avails a special chopper provided by the MP Govt (authorised by the CM) for a visit to Kanha National Park& then to his home town in Nagpur, while an important case of disqualification of defecting MLAs of MP is pending before him. Survival of MP govt depends on this case” tweeted Prashant Bhushan

CJI S A Bobde was using a Madhya Pradesh government chopper to travel to Nagpur from Kanha National Park. However, if only Prashant Bhushan would have spent some time giving a customary look to the state guidelines and protocols, he would have saved his and his followers’ time.

According to the protocol of Govt of India, any visit, official or unofficial, by the President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, Governors of other states and several other such VVIPs are considered as state visits. This means, whenever they visit the states, even on unofficial visits, their visits are considered as state visits and it is the responsibility of the respective state governments to arrange their travel and other logistics.

“State governments providing choppers for quick travel of CJI is routine. A few months back, the CJI had travelled from Shirdi to Shani Shingnapur and then back to his hometown Nagpur on a Maharashtra government chopper. So, availing the MP government chopper to travel from Kanha to Nagpur breaches no propriety,” an official Supreme Court source told TOI.

By treating the CJI as a state guest, the Madhya Pradesh government followed the standard operating protocol. In fact, according to the state guest rules 2011 of Madhya Pradesh, the Chief Justice of India is listed in the list-A of state guests.

And if Bhushan thought CJI Bobde was in dereliction of duty by visiting Kanha National Park or for that matter his home, then he is in for another rude shocker.

According to the official calendar of the Supreme Court. The court is on a holiday from 18 October (Sunday) to 25 October (Sunday) due to the Dusshera holiday and therefore no official court work is being disturbed or remains pending in his absence.

It was in September that a ‘martyr’ Bhushan accepted the court’s decision that he was a convicted person in the contempt of court case after he deposited the Re. 1 token fine imposed by the bench of Supreme Court. By coughing up the Re. 1 coin, Bhushan had admitted to guilt which an otherwise innocent and truly principled man would have never done.

Read: The “Gandhi” who didn’t prefer jail. Prashant Bhushan pays Re 1 as fine and this is a lesson for activist-lawyer gang

In one of the tweets, Bhushan had said four previous Chief Justices of India played a role in destroying democracy in the country since 2014. Another tweet was a reaction to a photo of Chief Justice Bobde on a Harley Davidson, where Bhushan had remarked he was without a helmet and face mask while keeping the court in lockdown and denying citizens their right to justice.

Bhushan is a frivolous PIL shooter at his best and a serial ‘clout chaser at his worst. By dragging CJI Bobde in another one of his tweets, the sexagenarian is looking for ways to stay in the limelight.